can i call you ‘maggot’?

I would probably be a much lazier, more ‘no-account’ version of myself without my dear friend, Rachel. Oh yes, Rachel, this post is about you. Now you’re famous. Kinda.

Alex and I started running the other day and it was only mildly traumatic for me, I definitely think I will be going again. I told this to Rachel and said that I should employ her as my personal motivator. My dear friend Rachel, who does 100 push-ups in one day, has several jobs, teaches youth group, manages a cabinet shop, runs marathons, courts with a fellow who lives lightyears away (in London), knits, and still manages to bake cookies for the guys at work on a regular basis. I should have known what she would say in reply…. “Oh yeah, I could definitely do that…. can I call you ‘maggot’? You know, in a motivational way- ‘DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY, MAGGOT!” Oh my.

The first time I ever had a real conversation with Rachel, we ended up discussing toenail polish and plotting out our futures as old maids who lived on the coast of *somewhere* and raised goats. We were like 13 and 14 years old. Rachel was young and slender and dreamed of moving to Europe and marrying an artsy man who listened to Josh Groban and read Jane Austen. I was young, not so slender and rather uptight about marrying a farmer who wasn’t going to forbid me from writing. I also wanted to go to Europe, preferably with Rachel, and listen to Josh Groban while basking in the warm, Italian sun with a personal interpreter to tell us what in the sam hill the man was singing *about*.

After 700 years of spinstertude, at the ages of 17 and 18, we decided to grow older and then open a coffee/tea, yarn/book shop, still on the coast, still with goats, knowing that we would need some sort of occupation, even as old maids. Rachel is the girl I cried with when I realized that Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester, Edward Ferras and John Thorton were fictional characters that never really existed- and never would exist. She was realizing the same thing at the same time and we grieved together, then wiped away our tears to determine to love this *real* life we’ve been given, whether it ended in marital bliss or a spinsterly retirement with goats and endless knitting.

Then Rachel moved to a Bible School out in the wide-open state of Montana where she tamed wild mountain goats and learned to butcher elk. She also developed a fondness for cowboy boots and the smell of horse tack.

I traveled East to the wild state of Maine, and then Vermont where I would work as a toilet scrubber, cake decorator, greenhouse junkie, hardware honey and eventually, waitress. I developed a fondness for semi-vegetarian cuisine and got in touch with my closet-hippie. Groovy.

Where are we now? Needless to say, our plans of being old maids on the coast with books and goats have been altered in the extreme, to the point where *some* people (Rachel and I) consider them *canceled* since we’ve both been found by pretty nice fellas- at least we think so. I grew up and married the handsome new cop in town (or maybe it was the other way around…) and Rachel, well, we’re still waiting on updates from across the Big Drink. They went “FaceBook Official” last Friday and I was there with the biggest of goofy grins on my face, ready to set my hearty “LIKE” on the match.

I dare say we will continue on, loving and living and arguing about which of our children should be forced to take cello lessons. She will inspire me to better myself and ‘fully enjoy the moment’, and I will remind her to breathe and not run herself into oblivion.

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2 thoughts on “can i call you ‘maggot’?”

You are truly a gem among women my dearest! Thank you for making me laugh, crying with me and making my life such a joy as I get to share it with you from half the country away at the moment! I love you friend!